


The Game is Won

by SammieAlex



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I wrote most of this at work, M/M, One Shot, Post The Final Problem, This Is Sad, i'm sorry guys, it was originally only going to be 2k words, woops my hand slipped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 12:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10464654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SammieAlex/pseuds/SammieAlex
Summary: After many years, the Holmes brothers think they have found the centre of the Spider's web- but what is the cost of the search?





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a one shot I mainly wrote while at college after the Season Four finale. It's a little rough around the edges, and the second part is much longer than I expected it to be, but yeah. Go forth and bring tissues.

Of course, it took years. Years of hunting and gathering intel from numerous sources. Years of questioning and threatening, and even a murder of a family member or two, but the day had finally arrived. Today was the day that Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes tracked down the infamous James Moriarty's previous flat.

Ever since the events of Sherrinford, Sherlock and Mycroft began somewhat of a partnership to erase every last trace of Moriarty- something they both agreed needed to be done.  
"You're sure this is it?" Mycroft asked his hired driver, suspicion in his tone.

"Of course it is," Sherlock replied before the driver could speak. "If you were the most wanted man in London would you have an extravagant flat? Well, it is you so maybe. Disregard that." With that, Sherlock opened the car door and stood in front of the ordinary looking building.

Mycroft exited the car and walked around, leading the two of them to the oak door. It seemed as if it had not been touched in at least months, perhaps more. It's white coat had more of a slightly tan colour, and the door knob seemed to have rusted ever so slightly. Mycroft looked at the knob with a sneer of disgust, which Sherlock took as him needing to open the door. With a sigh, he turned the rusty knob.

The door opened with a nasty creaking sound that seemed to echo through the building. 

"Hello?" Sherlock called out, slowly stepping inside and onto a sort of rug. He looked down and noticed the design of skulls patterned along the dingy object. 

"Oh for Christ's sake, Sherlock," Mycroft scolded, "No one has occupied this flat in years, and if someone is here that shouldn't be they're not going to answer you." 

Sherlock rolled his eyes and kept walking. As tan carpet changed to hard floor, the sound of creaking returned, this time under their feet.

The first room they came across was a kitchen. Black paint covered the walls, chipping in places near the ceiling and in random other locations- possibly Moriarty's nervous tick of some sort? Sherlock did recall that the mastermind was quite fidgety at times, so if he were alone at home it would only escalate. 

"Quite a new fridge," Mycroft examined, looking at the silver refrigerator that stood just beside a counter piece. "I'd say it came out in 2011; perhaps even the beginning of 2012." 

"He's a criminal mastermind that could open the vaults of the Bank of England from miles away. Do you think he would settle for an old refrigerator?" Sherlock kept going through the kitchen, examining things. 

Mycroft simply leaned on his umbrella, looking around to gain any new information he could a second time around. 

Sherlock, on the other hand, found the criminal's bedroom. 

The room seemed ominous- the tinted windows allowed no natural light to shine on the shaggy (but clean) dark blue carpet. The bed, which situated itself between the two windows, looked neat and newly made- though, of course, no one would have needed to touch it or use it since the day of Reichenbach.  
Sherlock went around, trying to find any wrongs in the dust lines- of course, as he suspected, none appeared.

That was when the wall caught his attention. As he examined the neutral toned walls, he found himself staring back at him in the form of a newspaper article; this particular one was of when he solved his first case in the presence of John Watson- A Study in Pink, as John had annoying entitled it. More photos of his face looked back at them, and many of them had holes through them; a quick deduction told Sherlock that they were a mix of knife stabs, gun shots, and even pen marks. 

"Sherlock," Mycroft called from the kitchen, interrupting the detective’s concentration. "There won't be much in the bedroom, if we stick to Moriarty's personality. Don't waste time in there." 

Sherlock decided to leave the room; the pictures of him seemed to move and follow him, which he did not exactly appreciate. A fake apple engraved with "I O U" caught the corner of his eye on a lonely bookshelf, but he ignored it in favour of the sitting room- which, apart from the bathroom, was the last room in the small apartment.

Instantly, a laptop sitting on the table caught Sherlock's attention. 

Without so much as a second thought, Sherlock rushed over to the old piece of technology and began to examine it. No, it had not served as Moriarty's primary laptop (not near enough wear on the keys), but it had been purchased with the intent of usage- probably only for once or twice. Perhaps with the intent of more use? Highly unlikely. Moriarty was organised; it would not be uncharacteristic for him to have separate laptops for different purposes. 

Something else that caught his attention; the computer was running a screensaver. Nothing entirely intriguing, but simply a rotating cube floating around the screen.

"Sherlock?" Mycroft's voice came, sounding curious. He had now stepped into the room, though stood fairly close to the doorframe that led from the kitchen. Sherlock almost suspected that, had there been any, Mycroft would be eating some form of food from the fridge. 

"Over here," Sherlock responded, hardly paying any mind to his older brother. 

After examining the laptop a bit more, Sherlock wiped his finger on the mousepad, which aroused the computer from it's sleep and left a slight dust coating on his finger. The laptop had evidently been idle for quite a while, simply kept charged by the charger connected in the wall. The computer produced an image of none other than Moriarty himself.  
With a fair bit of caution, Sherlock hit the play button in the middle of the screen.

"Hello~" sounded the only too familiar Irish voice of Sherlock's arch nemesis. "Took you long enough." The criminal shifted his eyes, looking at something the camera did not follow to focus. 

"Sherlock, what are you do-" Mycroft began, but Sherlock cut him off mid-sentence. 

"I told my 'people' to wait a few years before telling your dearest brother about this place- do you really think Mycroft Holmes could break the toughest minds in England? Fat chance." Moriarty looked smug with himself.

Mycroft looked as if he was about to make a remark, but Sherlock gave a hand motion to keep him silent. Mycroft shut his open mouth, looking annoyed.

"Anywho~" the sing-song voice continued, "If you're watching this, you survived fall. Bravo, congratulations." These last two remarks carried an air of sarcasm with them. “I already planned this all out. I knew that I would shoot myself; I went on that roof, ready to solve one issue of our little game. Yet, the game is yet to be over…”

"Sherlock, this is s-" Mycroft began, but Sherlock cut him off once again, only interested in the video recorded years ago.

Moriarty had paused at that moment, looking directly at the camera. Those dead eyes stared straight into Sherlock's blue-green ones; except now the eyes' owner matched the condition. It was odd to consider James Moriarty as dead, even though this had been a fact for over five years. These thoughts, as well as memories from that long ago, flooded Sherlock's mind in the few seconds of silence in the video.

"Now, I presume you're wondering why I left this little tape, hm?” Moriarty questioned, seeming as if he hadn’t left such an odd pause. “Or have you figured it out? Probably not, though; I know how you work Sherlock." Hearing the Irish accent pronounce his first middle name always gave the detective an odd feeling. Even through the recording, it felt as if the man himself stood behind him and whispered it softly into a sensitive ear. Sherlock only identified it as odd because it felt reassuring, but when Sherlock thought James Moriarty, he labeled him anything except reassuring. 

"You think you're this grand detective; a god among men. That's the difference between you and me, you see. You think this, and I know I am a god among all these.. ants." Moriarty shifted his eyes again, and the camera shook. "Moran, keep the bloody camera focused. You should be able to for fuck's sake!

"Back on topic, my second favourite Holmes," this left his mouth with a smirk; if Sherlock had watched this before Sherringford, he would have assumed the criminal somehow appreciated Mycroft more (in what universe would this happen? Sherlock would consider if he believed in parallel universes), but now he knew of Eurus, his younger sister. 

"I suppose this video will be one last little case from me. My last murder, if you wish to call it that." At this point, Moriarty's face was unreadable; he looked emotionless, yet contained all the emotion in the world.

A few seconds passed, and he resumed talking. "Two brothers. Bombed in an abandoned building after watching my face for a few minutes. Quite sad, really; they both were quite important. The younger one was liked more by the public, even though he was quite a pawn in my little game." Moriarty smirked.  
Mycroft and Sherlock looked at each other, but then Moriarty kept speaking. 

"Of course, this murder hasn't happened yet, but it'll make the front page I'm sure. And you won't be able to stop it, Sherlock Holmes. You won't get to solve this one either; because this is the solution to our problem. The final problem. I've won, Sherlock Holmes. I've won our game. Even when I’m dead I can still beat you and your stuck-up brother! I look forward to seeing you in Hell, Holmes." 

"Sherlock, we need to leave!" Mycroft yelled, but it was far too late. 

_____

50 missed calls in the past 90 minutes. How was that even possible? Why had it happened?

John Watson blearily opened his eyes when his phone lit up for call 51- a picture of Molly Hooper filled the background as the call rang through.

John answered the call, putting the phone on speaker mode as to save the effort of putting it up to his ear. "Molly?" 

All John heard was horrible and gross sobbing. "J-John!" Molly's voice was cracking and a stuttering mess. 

"Molly, I can hardly understan- yes, bu- MOLLY!" John hadn't meant to, but he raised his voice. Molly froze for a second, letting out a shaky breath.

"Come to the morgue," she finally muttered before hanging up.

With the air of curiosity, John called for a cab to arrive at the house in five minutes, then hurriedly dressed himself. He tried not to think of why Molly would have sounded so distressed, because of course, one person came to mind. 

What if something happened to Sherlock? 

No, that was stupid. As far as John knew, Sherlock had been only solving simple cases, because that was all that came up on Lestrade’s desk. Most of the major cases went to other members of New Scotland Yard; there was no reason Sherlock would be in any danger. Besides, Molly said the morgue. It would probably just be a body to investigate.

But then why did she call so many times?

John finished dressing just as the cab honked outside. He rushed outside, locked the front door, then took a seat in the cab.

“Saint Bart’s Hospital, please. As quickly as possible.” Even the driver could detect the nervousness in the doctor’s voice as he took off without another word.

Curiously, John opened his phone, pulled up a new message, and addressed it to Molly. 

“What’s happened?” John typed, then hit send. He kept staring at his phone, awaiting a reply. He half expected an immediate reply, considering that Molly had called him fifty-one times just that morning.

The reply took five minutes; the time it took to drive one-fourth of the way to the hospital. 

“Idowntknowhoewtosaiytoveawrtextjsutpleaser tell meyou re onyourw ay”

John could only make out specific words, but looking at it for too long gave him a wave of motion sickness, so he stopped and looked ahead. 

Both John’s and the driver’s cell phones gave off a notification sound at the same time; they both had a certain news app that gave them notifications when a top news story occurs. Reading the headline that showed on the lockscreen preview, John found out a small apartment somewhere on the outskirts of a major city (it said only this; it did not specify) had apparently spontaneously exploded.

“Don’t bother reading it,” John suggested to both the driver and himself. “Probably just some rowdy teenagers way too over their heads. God knows how they got their hands on bloody explosives.”

The remainder of the ride to the hospital was spent in silence, yet it was not a good silence. It was a frigid silence; John was anxious and the driver could tell. He sped for much of the ride. 

Once the cab stopped outside of the hospital, John opened the door and jumped out. He handed a few pounds to the driver, then ran inside. He received odd looks from many of those either working or waiting for people within the rooms.

John hurried down to the morgue; even from a hallway away, John could hear Molly’s sobbing. With being in an area dedicated to dead people, it was chilling to hear such an alive sound.

Molly must have heard John’s footsteps, because her sobbing considerably quieted and she came out into the hallway. 

Immediately, John ran to her and gave her a comforting hug. John was never one for this sort, but just the look and appearance of Molly Hooper frightened him so much that it was the only reaction he truly had. 

They stayed together for a few moments, and then Molly broke the hug. “John… it’s bad.” In person, Molly’s voice was hardly better than on the phone. It was the voice of someone broken, and that frightened John even more. 

Molly led John into the room, where two slabs held bodies with white sheets atop them. One of the figures, even from this distance, seemed disfigured. A visible shudder ran down the doctor’s back.

With a shaky breath, Molly took the lead and walked in between the two slabs. John followed, looking at the one not disfigured. He grabbed the sheet and lifted it. This was followed by a huge gasp; John’s eyes grew wide as he stood in disbelief. 

“This can’t actually be Mycroft, can it?!” John asked, quickly looking at Molly. She only replied with a solemn nod. Tears began welling in her eyes again.

“That means… no.” Realisation dawned on John as he stared at the slab still covered. “No, no that can’t be. Molly, that can’t be him!”

Quiet sobs emitted from Molly as she pulled the sheet away from the second slab. This time, instead of disbelief, John felt heartbreak. 

If Molly had not shown John the brother first, John would have had a hard time identifying this corpse as Sherlock Holmes. The material of clothing looked as if it had been scorched and melted onto his lifeless body, including his infamous coat and scarf. One of his arms was actually missing entirely, which John looked at for a few moments. 

The worst part had to be the detective’s face, because it was hardly a face at all. Half of the face in total was completely absent, along with that side of the head. Crispness covered the brain visible; this was the brain that had helped many lives and solved so many crimes, and now it was on display in an atrocious way. The part of the head still on almost was just as frightening. All of the skin had been burned off (except for splotches here and there, which added all the more fright), and muscle displayed itself. All but two of the detective’s teeth were absent from his mouth, and… that was all that was left.

“Molly, this is a sick prank. I don’t know what you’re playing at, because I have seen people DIE right in front of me, and this is NOT A PROPER JOKE!” John’s whole face began to redden as he approached his terrified friend, who began to step back quickly with her hands raised in a gesture of innocence. 

Molly attempted to speak and defend herself, yet her voice did not cooperate with her will. Tears still sprang from Molly’s eyes, though now she did not attempt to stop them, nor did she honestly care about them.

John walked away and angrily kicked a wall, then yelled out in both anger and pain. He rounded on Molly again. “Stop this. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice and you’ve got another thing coming Molly Hooper.”

Molly would have preferred if John yelled that, but no; his voice was low and threatening, which happens to be much worse than yelling. It’s being so angry that one can’t even show their true anger anymore.

Finally, after a few moments, Molly gathered herself enough to respond. “I know th-this is him, J-John,” she gulped, trying to keep her stuttering to a minimum. “Mycroft told m-me that they w-were-”

However, instead of providing a sense of proof for John, it only angered him further. “You knew?! YOU KNEW THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN?!” 

“N-no!” Molly muttered feebly, horrified again. “I knew th-there was the chance, but-”

Again, Molly was cut off. “EVERYONE TOLD ME HE WAS TAKING EASY CASES! EVERYONE!”

“We.. We had to, J-John.” Molly couldn’t look her friend in the face, afraid that she would be unable to speak; it was hard enough already, anyways. “If you knew that h-he was d-doing d-dangerous stuff..”

“SO YOU LIED TO ME?!” John yelled so loud that people on the floor just above wondered what the noise had been that just sounded; probably just one of the many machines that kept the hospital patients alive. 

“It wasn’t my decision!” Molly shouted quietly (well, more horsley). “It was Sherlock’s and M-Mycroft’s. I t-told them to tell you, but they d-didn’t listen.” 

John took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. Advice from a few therapists (that didn’t try to kill him, mind you) told him that he shouldn’t anger at past events; he couldn’t change them with an emotion. He only had control over how he felt, but dammit he felt so many conflicting emotions. Anger- no, fury. So much fury at Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, and even Molly; she knew. She had the privilege to know that any day could be the brothers’ last, and he didn’t. He, the one famous for being Sherlock’s companion. He, who made sure Sherlock Holmes did nothing too stupid. He, who was raising his daughter alone because his wife had been killed defending the man that now lay in gory remains in front of him. Oh yes, he felt furious. Yet, he also felt heartbreak and, God forbid, alone. The memories from those two years he first thought the detective dead came flooding back, though they had that air of finality to them now. There would be no miraculous resurrection. There would be no disguise at a fancy restaurant while he was about to propose. No, both of those people now happened to be lifeless, somewhere in the afterlife, if there even was one (which John began to wonder more each and every day in his doubting mind). Now he only had Rosie. He loved Rosie with all his heart. Right now, she would be finishing the school day of her Kindergarten class without a care in the world (unless she didn’t get her turn on the “mega awesome slide”), while her father was quite literally breaking. 

Thinking about that, John texted Mrs. Hudson- it was the first person alive that came to mind- and asked her to pick up Rosie from school, then go babysit her. He said he was with Molly, and wouldn’t be too stable to be with a child tonight. 

Almost immediately, Mrs. Hudson replied with a simple “okay love,” to which John simply left on “read”.

Surprisingly, no tears came from John Watson that day, nor the next. It was quite odd, considering how horrifyingly angry and depressed he felt. 

The day after, however, there was a knock at the door. It was a bleak Saturday; raining, which was not out of the ordinary. Rosie, who was awake watching a recorded cartoon that she loved, ran to the door and looked out the peep hole. 

“Daaaaaaaaaad!” Rosie shouted back into the house. “Aunt Molly’s here!” 

John walked from his room, trying to somehow tame his bedhead. He waited for Rosie to move over slightly, then opened the door.

Before either could say a word of greeting, Rosie ran and hugged Molly’s legs tightly. “I’ve missed you Aunt Molly! You always smell so nice and I love you!”

Molly gave Rosie a small smile, ruffling her hair a bit. She then looked up at John. “I.. found this. It was placed on… on their bodies. It must have been last night, because I didn’t see it when I left. The cameras were down all night for some reason, so they didn’t get anything either.” In Molly’s hand was a dvd in a sleeve, with “WATSON” written in odd script.

“Oh, uhm…” John studied the dvd for quite a while, curiously terrified. “Thanks. Yeah, thanks, er, Molly, I’ll… uhm…”

“There won’t be a funeral,” Molly blurted out. “I mean, we can have a small one. They’ll be cremated, mainly because the job’s already half-way done.” Currently, Molly was trying to lighten the mood of the whole thing, which was her apparent coping method for the whole event. Odd, how the human brain works after tragedy and trauma. 

“Oh, alright then. When will it happen?” John felt quite uncomfortable with Molly’s attempted humour, though he would admit it was much better than her sobbing.

“Well, I can go cremate real quick, then we can meet in the graveyard in about an hour or so? The main issue will be digging the graves, though they won’t need to be all that deep, I guess it depends on if th-”

“Okay, Molly, that sounds great. Thank you, uhm, we’ll be there. Right, Rosie?” John looked down at his daughter, who nodded. 

“Yeah! I wanna say bye-bye to Uncle Sherly-locks.” Rosie said this in a sort of childhood innocence- she did not yet fully understand death, even though she had been raised around so much of it. 

Molly froze for a second, tears threatening, but she kept them at bay. “Invite Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, if you want. No one else. You know them… they never really liked other people.” Molly offered a nervous laugh. John offered one in return, though it was half-hearted.

“Well, I’ll be back at the hospital getting ready.. See ya there, yeah?” Molly did not wait for a reply as she left the doorway and went back to the cab that was waiting for her. 

John decided he would watch whatever was on the disc later; right now, he had to prepare physically and emotionally for this. 

First off; call Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson and inform them of the arrangements. They both said they would be there and thanked him for the invitation. 

Next, John laid out one of his suits (it was the same one he wore to Mary’s small service), then went to pick out one of Rosie’s dresses for her to wear. With a morbid thinking sense, John always kept a black dress in Rosie’s size, since there could always be need for it at any given moment. It wasn’t even surprising that this thought proved to be true.  
Rosie, five years old, was already showing signs of great independence, which she often wished to display to John. In this case, she dressed herself in the black dress that she honestly loved; the flowy-ness was just perfect for the Princess of Destruction she wanted to be when she grew up. 

John spent his time slowly putting his suit on, thinking. He thought of everything he had been through with Sherlock Holmes, London’s Consulting Detective. All the times he had been a total dick, and then all the times he actually was a decent human being. John smiled in spite of himself, chuckling slightly about all of the time they had been in each others’ company. 

“Dad!” Rosie called as she ran into the bathroom John was in, reminiscing. “Where did Uncle SherlyLocks go? Why are we saying bye-bye?” Curiosity, such an innocent curiosity, riddled her face. 

John looked at her, bending down to be eye-level with her. “He’s gone where mommy is. They were close friends, you know? We’ll see them again someday, though. Trust me.”  
Rosie nodded- child acceptance of a huge topic that has been watered down to the extreme is what John both admired and hated. Rosie didn’t understand that she would never see her Uncle again; she didn’t understand that mommy was never coming back. Someday she would, and then it would break her heart.

Finally, the time came to call the cab and go to the cemetery. Ironically, both Mycroft and Sherlock would be buried in the vacant spot that was once thought to have held Sherlock’s dead body after falling off of a building. The headstone had been replaced with one that said both of their names, their birthdays, then their shared death day. Underneath said something about being brothers that John almost had to laugh hard at- as if either would be content with this emotional and soppy quote identifying them for eternity?

John and Rosie were the last to arrive on the sight. Molly stood by two urns that contained the ashes of the Holmes brothers. Mrs. Hudson stood looking into the gaping hole that would be their grave, crying into her handkerchief. Greg Lestrade, dressed in what John believed was his best suit, stood off to the side, looking as if he had no clue how to react to such an event. 

“Thank you all for coming out here today,” Molly started, looking at the four. “I like to consider us the closest to these two, so it only seems right for us to be the ones to send them off for the last time.” 

Mrs. Hudson blew her nose, but seemed to be trying to get ahold of herself.

“Now, since there are only five of us, I think we should all say something. I can go first?” After noone spoke, Molly simply nodded. “Well, these two completely changed my life. For the better and for the worse, if I’m honest.” She paused for a soft laugh. “They were brilliant, which is a huge understatement. I could walk through a store on my way to work, and Sherlock Holmes would tell you why my cat no longer loves me, which is why I buy the perfume that I love.” 

This joke inspired some chuckling from the crowd, especially from Rosie. 

“The world is going to be much darker now, but… I feel like both Sherlock and Mycroft still live in us; we have to be that light that they were. He have to carry on their legacy the best we can.” Molly took a deep breath, then signalled that she was done. 

Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade took their turns to speak; Mrs. Hudson spoke of how she felt like almost a motherly figure towards the both of them (harsher to Mycroft, because, well, he needed it). Lestrade talked a surprising amount about Mycroft, and all of them were quite shocked. Of course, he also spoke of Sherlock. 

John couldn’t find his words. It was at moments like this that words escape the best of people. 

“Sherlock was, arguably, my best friend. I had no idea what I was getting into when I met him, but that’s the fun of it, isn’t it? Not knowing, following wherever he decides to go? Of course, he could be a dick at times, and Mycroft a bigger one, but both of them were extraordinary men, and truly helped this world.” Tears finally slipped from John’s eyes at that moment.

After a few moments of silence, Molly looked to Rosie and offered a soft smile. “Would you like to say anything, Rosie?”

Rosie looked up at Molly, then at the urns. “Bye-Bye, Uncle SherlyLocks and Myc.”

With that, and a few tears to follow, the four adults gently lowered the two urns into the ground, then piled dirt on top of them. After this task was done, they all said their goodbyes to one another, then left the solemn scene.

The cab ride was silent; Rosie felt no need to talk at the moment, which John was grateful for immensely. 

Once home, John went to his room with the DVD. He put it in his laptop, then hit the play button on the video.

Her nearly screamed when the screen flooded with the face of Jim Moriarty.

“Hello, Johnny Boy!” Jim greeted, his sadistic smile not reaching his cold, dead eyes. “Glad you’re watching this. Because, if my team hasn’t fucked up completely, this means that Sherlock is dead. Finally. Far after Reichenbach, of course.”

John almost paused the video to take the disc out and throw it, but he did not. 

“Now, why did I leave this video? Simple. I killed Sherlock Holmes. I did indeed; I had my flat rigged with explosives, and he set off the trigger. You know he can never keep his hands off of interesting things.” Moriarty smirked, darting his eyes off camera for a small second before continuing. 

“I might as well tell you this, because we’re both dead. Maybe a last will or some shit like that.” Moriarty almost cringed at the idea of being so cliche and obvious. 

“I loved him, John Watson. Or, at least, felt a connection. Do you know how impossible that is? A man who never felt a single emotion in his existence suddenly dealing with the most complicated one of them? Of course, it might have been me simply tricking myself into thinking I loved him, but I don’t believe that is the case. If it is, that’s why I blew my brains out on that fateful day. They had betrayed me. I won’t get into all of that with you, though. You’re a medical doctor, not a therapist that can analyse my psychological disorder.” Moriarty looked… vulnerable. 

“Why am I telling you this? Honestly, I don’t even know, which is a first. Maybe because you relate? I know your feelings for him, John Watson. I’ve seen it firsthand. He never saw it, and not even you truly saw it. Maybe you still don’t? Oh, how ironic that would be!” 

John was confused watching this. This was so out of Jim Moriarty’s character that he couldn’t believe that it was true. 

“So, there was more than one game, Dr. Watson. You were the third player, and I’ve won against you as well. I’ve literally burned the heart out of you by burning the one you neglected to love. So now, you have to live with that. You must live with knowing this information, and being reminded every day that you lost the opportunity, lost the game, to me.”

The camera was shaking a bit, but neither John nor Moriarty noticed this. 

“Enjoy your short existence on earth, John Watson. See you in hell soon, where I will sit upon the throne.” 

The video then clicked off, the face of Jim Moriarty etched into John’s mind, listening to the echoed words from the Psychopath.

“You lost the opportunity, lost the game, to me.”


End file.
